Image-forming devices, such as inkjet, laser, and other types of printers, are perhaps most commonly used to print on non-rigid, or flexible, media, such as paper. Business users may employ printers to print memos, presentations, copies of email, and so on. Home users may similarly employ printers to print photographs, homework reports, labels, copies of email, and so on. However, more specialized image-forming devices usually are used to print on rigid media.
Such rigid media may include optical discs, such as compact discs (CD's) and digital versatile discs (DVD's), and plastic, such as identification cards, and so on. Although the actual image-forming mechanism may be the same for outputting on rigid media as it is for outputting on non-rigid media, rigid media introduce a perhaps unique set of challenges for image-forming devices. For instance, because a rigid medium by definition cannot be easily bent as it passes through an image-forming device, different media-handling mechanisms usually must be used than those used for flexible media.
Whereas image-forming devices generally can achieve rather fast throughput for non-rigid media, owing to the ability of the non-rigid media to be bent as it winds through the media-handling mechanisms of such devices, comparable throughput for rigid media is more difficult to accomplish. This can be disadvantageous in situations where fast throughput is desired, however.